The moment he returned to office, President Donald Trump and his administration unleashed a relentless campaign against immigrants in America. From making it harder to apply for legal immigration and refugee status to carrying out military-style raids and housing immigrants in deadly and dangerous detention camps, on every level the Trump administration has waged a brutal campaign against both legal and undocumented immigrants in this country.
Given that record, it was a rather jarring to watch die-hard MAGA activists gather on Ellis Island last weekend to celebrate America's 250th anniversary. Organized by Moms for Liberty and featuring Glenn Beck along with father-son Christian nationalist pseudo-historians David and Tim Barton, the "Sea to Shining Sea" event was billed as "an enchanting evening of fellowship, fine dining, and a celebration like no other, paying tribute to this great nation."
Beck served as the keynote speaker, delivering an incongruous address extolling the benefits immigrants get from coming to America and the reciprocal benefits America reaps by welcoming them.
Over and over again, Beck gushed that throughout the nation's history, millions of immigrants have flocked to America where they "filled our cities with energy and ambition" in search of an opportunity to "change the world for the better."
Among the long list of immigrants and children of immigrants who have gone on to find success in America, Beck cited none other than Trump himself.
"As we were doing our research for this evening and I was looking at the names of the people who came," Beck said, "I thought, I wonder if this date has any significance in history with Ellis Island."
"I want to tell you a story of a young woman in particular that you probably have never heard of," he continued. "Her name was Mary Anne. She was born on the remote island of Lewis in Scotland. This is a place of hard scrapping life, high winds. It was 1930. She was 18 years old, and she got on a boat to come to Ellis Island in 1930 on May 2nd. Today is the anniversary."
"She arrived here eleven days later," Beck said. "She wasn't chasing riches or power. She came just for the opportunity. Her sister was already here and found a job and so she decided to come. She stood in this room and wrote her name down: Mary Ann MacLeod. And next to it, what's your job? Domestic. She and her sister were maids. She came to America knowing that she would serve and clean the houses and the toilets of the wealthy families here in New York."
"She's here for six years, and she meets a man. She marries him," Beck elaborated. "His name is Fred. He was the son of German immigrants. In 1942, she became a citizen, and Mary and Fred would end up having five children: two daughters and three sons. And one of those sons, they named him Donald."
As the audience erupted in cheers and applause, Beck marveled that "her son would become a real estate tycoon"
"A woman who came here as a maid, the lowest of jobs, would raise a son who would become a real estate mogul and the 45th and 47th president of the United States of America," Beck celebrated. "Scotland, give us your wretched refuse. Send them to us. See what the people you deem not worthy, see what happens to them here in America!"
There can be no missing the irony that the man hailed as an American immigration success story is currently carrying out a vicious campaign against immigrants from the highest office in the land and that the very same people who cheered the Trump family's success are simultaneously cheering on that same vicious campaign.
It is additionally ironic that this claim was made by Glenn Beck, who spent the entire 2016 election cycle warning that Trump was crazy, a dangerous psychopath, and the “biggest flaming [ass] that you could possibly imagine.”
